Turnagain Arm Pit

Update: The review below was written after I left the restaurant. Shortly after, I called the restaurant and asked to speak wit the manager. I was eventually put in touch with him and he was mortified that this had been my experience. He apologized profusely, explained what had happened that evening, making note that it was no excuse for this type of experience, discussed their process for accountability for such an experience, and offered to have us come in again. Since we were leaving town that evening, we suggested that he send a gift card to the wonderful B&B owners (at Alaska House of Jade!!) we were staying with and he agreed to do so. A few days later, I received a text from the B&B owners that they had received the gift certificate. I am pleased with this outcome, though I wish I could have just eaten my meal here. Perhaps I’ll come back again on a future visit and let them win me over.
Original Review:
After 45 minutes of waiting we overheard them tell another table they’d forgot to put in their order so then WE asked the staff what was up with our order and we got «oh, yeah, sorry, we forgot to put your order in.» Were they even going to tell us? Or were there bets going to see how long we’d sit there? They didn’t even offer to now put in our order or to send out something/​anything quick while we waited for our order or to comp our order. We got a «hope you come back.» You gotta be kidding me! Back to a shit show like this? Makes me seriously wonder what fingers they forget to not serve as hot dogs or what counters they just forget to clean or which rag is for the bathroom or the utensils.

Absolutely delicious!
I had a Mac n Cheese with a ceasar salad. The salad was huge with lots of cheese and was already mixed which was perfect. The mac n cheese was so good. At first it came out a bit cold but they took it back without any excuses, just an apology which is what I like to hear. When it be back, it was PERFECT! Small macaroni pasta with lots of cheese and on top was a layer of torched cheese. A beautiful and delicious dish. And even better than that, the service was incredible. The waitress was so kind and the owner cme around and bonded with all of the customers. That’s the end of this review. I hope you go try it out

Best BBQ in Alaska! Being from Texas, I think I know my BBQ! Only reason I rated it 4 stars is cause the food temp is still not quite as hot as I’d like. Service is great, the different sauces they make are really good! They moved to a larger, better location, I love it! Feels more homey and restaurant like. If you are driving down the Seward Hwy, you MUST stop in!

Middling at best. After driving past this place every day on my way to work for the past six months, I finally decided to give them a shot. Being a native North Carolinian, I admit to a high level of snobbery whenever I see pulled pork on the menu. I ordered the pulled pork sandwich and didn’t smell any smoke, or notice the reddish hue that’s characteristic of smoked meat. The meat was tender, but there was nothing special about the taste and it was a bit on the dry side. There were regional sauces on the table, but the NC vinegar based offering didn’t have nearly enough red pepper flake in it. My dining companion was disappointed by the small serving size in comparison to the cost of his meal. But since our meals were served in relatively short order leaving us plenty of time to get back to the office within the allotted time, he was able to make a pit stop at Dairy Queen on the way back.

Excellent little stop after a long fishing trip or hike in Girdwood. As previous reviews mention, do keep an eye out for this place. It’s easy to miss and you’ll find yourself having to turn around on this busy highway to get to it again.
The restaurant itself is very small and homey but they made great use of the space. The staff is just wonderful and very friendly!
I had the brisket sandwich with bacon. Yum!!! They have different bbq sauces on the table and I had fun trying each one with every bite. Their curly fries were nice and crunchy and very nicely seasoned too! If you love sweet tea, they have awesome refreshing tea but I had them make mine half sweet and half unsweetened because sweet tea alone was just over the top sweet.
One complaint is that I wish I could’ve had an option to trade the curly fries for sweet potato fries, but no substitutions are allowed :-/​
Oh and there are picnic tables outside if you prefer to enjoy your delicious meal outside.

Super nice and helpful staff. Excellent and amazing food! The Boar Tide sandwich was awesome and the beans are to die for!!! The slaw was pretty good and better than I expected it would be. The honey butter on the cornbread was super yummy, too.
It’s so hard to find a truly good place to eat since moving up here, and it was definitely a pleasant surprise to find a good barbecue joint. I hope the location in Anchorage is as good as the one on Seward Hwy so I can indulge in the winter.

Delicious!!! I had pulled pork, collards and and smoked beans. Super yummy! So glad I turned around!

Happy to have found this spot! Love the little hut by the highway that serves tasty barbecue with a multitude of sauce styles (I’m a Carolina girl, all the way). Also had their catering at two events (one charitable: Renal Riot for a friend and fellow Alaskan’s
Kidney transplant fundraiser – good on ya, Armpit!) and the food traveled well and the cornbread was delicious.

Hands down one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world. You heard me I said WORLD! Cascading waterfalls from the Chugach Mountains to one side and beluga whales to the other swimming in the cook inlet. I often see sheep and eagles too. I am lucky enough to have to make this drive to buy groceries, and even though I do it often I still have to pull over to take in all the beauty.

Check your takeout orders as ours was all wrong. Didn’t get ordered dessert; tiny portions in to-​go order– what? You thought I wouldn’t mind paying same price as eat-​in but with portions definitely smaller? No sauce included in the pulled pork and brisket orders. Meat was tough and cold. Boo.

On our drive from Anchorage to Whittier via our cruise transfer, we drove along Turnagain Arm.
This was a scenic drive, and you get to see some possible Beluga whale sightings at Beluga Point!

Staff was so nice. And the food was excellent. The ribs had a great smoky flavor and were very tender. If in this area, it’s a must.

A great day road trip from Anchorage with spectacular views along the oceanside highway. Lots of trails and turnouts for hikes and pictures.
We did this early morning from Anchorage before heading up that same day up to Denali so didn’t have that much time. Otherwise, we could have headed further into Chugach National Forest or explored the area some more.
It’s certainly not a fair comparison but having done seen the views here and at Denali back to back, I’d have to pick the latter in terms of breathtaking sights. But on its own, this drive is really amazing and definitely worth it if you’re in the southern Alaska.

I was born and raised in the South and I’ve eaten BBQ all over the country. It is by far and away my favorite food. Sadly, Anchorage is a dead zone for good BBQ so I usually wind up smoking brisket, pork butt and turkey throughout the summer. I had high hopes when I heard Turnagain Arm Pit was opening a location here in Anchorage and I finally had a chance to go over for lunch today.
I got the sliced brisket sandwich with original sauce, the coleslaw and the baked beans.
The brisket is good. It’s tender and flavorful. They’re using a standard rub, so there’s nothing that particularly stands out about it one way or the other. It’s a good, basic rub that gets the job done. My one criticism is they are leaving far too much fat cap on the brisket during smoking. As a customer, I feel like I’m getting ripped off when nearly ¼ of each slice of brisket is fat — especially in light of the high prices they charge, which I’ll get into later.
On to the sauce. A Kansas City sauce is typically very sweet; a Carolina sauce is more vinegar based; a Texas sauce typically has some heat to it. Eschewing all of these, this sauce is sort of a generic, middle-​of-​the-​road option. It tastes HEAVILY of cumin. (WTF is it with people in Anchorage and their love of cumin? I’ve found the same issue when it comes to wings here.) The sauce has a slight bit of tang, no heat and IMO would be better with about half the cumin. It’s not great, it’s not bad — it’s…generic.
The coleslaw is terrible. If you like raw cabbage, then this is definitely the coleslaw for you. The best thing I can say about it is it’s nicely crisp. I can taste a slight hint of vinegar and a very slight taste of apple so I’m guessing some mixture of apple cider vinegar and probably a bit of sugar to balance it out – altho to be honest I taste no sweet. I can see a few lonely flecks of pepper and I’m guessing salt. That’s it. I make three or four different versions of coleslaw and all of them are better than this. Definitely disappointing.
Likewise, the beans are pretty disappointing. If you like mediocre refried beans, these will hit the spot because they are bland, bland, bland. It’s a mix of a bunch of different types of beans. There’s a slight hint of smoke so they might be cooked in the smoker or smoked at some point. There is no hint of sweetness or spiciness whatsoever. They will fill you up but they are completely bland and tasteless. I know there is some sort of seasoning in them but it’s beyond my palate to figure out what they used because they used so little. I can make better beans than this in my sleep and it doesn’t even cost much more to make. Just adding some chopped onion, a few pieces of chopped bacon, brown sugar and some molasses before cooking would work wonders.
I’m giving them a solid two and here is my reasoning. My meal was $ 15.50. For that I got a brisket sandwich with 7 slices of brisket (short slices, not long ones – which were roughly 25% fat cap), a hamburger bun, a little container of sauce, coleslaw (which was basically raw cabbage) and baked beans (which were filling but unappetizing).
Making BBQ is an expensive venture. When I smoke, it typically takes 12 hours. I use an entire bag of charcoal and about ¹⁄₃ of a bag of wood chunks which I have to special order. My smoker was about $ 400. By the time you factor in the cost of the meat, the time to get set up, the prep time for making my rubs and sauces, the time I spend monitoring temperatures, etc., it’s a costly venture. It’s expensive in both time and money for me to do at home. So I fully understand how much more expensive it can be to try to do it as a business – especially here in Alaska where you don’t have access to free, quality hardwoods and you have to deal with trying to smoke in the winter.
That being said, Turnagain Arm Pit is disappointing because I feel like the owners are robbing the customers of what could be really great food by cutting corners. For the money they spent on 2 styrofoam containers for the beans and slaw, I would have been happier with a 3-​compartment container and 4 dill pickle slices to put on my sandwich, which were sadly absent. The sides could easily be kicked up with a few additional ingredients. Good BBQ is primarily about the meat but if I’m going to serve someone something, it’s going to be good — particularly if I have the nerve to charge money for it and I feel like the guys at Turnagain stopped trying after the meat.
The meat was pretty good and if anything, I would recommend stopping by and buying the meat by the pound. My serving was possibly 4 oz. So basically, I paid $ 15.50 for 4 oz. of meat because the sides were so bland and unappetizing. I’d have been better off buying a pound of meat for $ 20.
I’d give them 2.5 stars if it were an option. They aren’t a 2 but definitely don’t deserve a 3.

Was a great stop headed South for a day trip in Seward with my daughter. Was hungry and had to get some grub and said BBQ in AK what do they know about BBQ? Well seems they know plenty. We got 2 pulled pork sandwiches and Extra Sides.
The pork was moist and smoked nice. The sandwiches came with Beans and Coleslaw and let me tell you the beans had a smokey goodness that was like I’ve never had before. The coleslaw was also really clean and light with a non-​mayo style vinegar sauce with a tad bit of sugar — really nice!
The 2 Extra Sides were Fried Pickles — Had a great dip too and then there was the Sweet Potato fries. Man it hit the spot.
This is now my go to place when heading on a drive out to Seward, Soldotna or Homer for the family now! Very Good BBQ! They even give your dog a pork bone if you ask. Woof Woof!

Known as Turnagain Arm Drive, the 50 mile drive along the Seward Highway from Anchorage to Portage Glacier along the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet is one of the world’s great scenic drives. The Seward Highway linking Anchorage and Seward is a National Forest Scenic Byway and one of 15 roads in the United States designated as an «All-​American Road.»
On your right going south is the Cook Inlet. On your left are the 3,000 foot Chugach Mountains. Cook Inlet is a body of water up to four miles wide, and was named after Captain James Cook who charted it. With him was William Bligh who named Turnagain Arm. Bligh later became the deposed captain in Mutiny on the Bounty, and after that was appointed by the British as one of the first Governors of the State of New South Wales in Australia [what the hell were they thinking?] Cook Inlet extends 180 miles (290 km) northeast from the open water Gulf of Alaska to the city of Anchorage. Cook Inlet branches first into the Knik Arm and then Turnagain Arm at its northern end, almost surrounding Anchorage. It may be hard to picture this without a map. When the tide is out, there are extensive mudflats, like quicksand.
Turnagain Arm has a «bore tide» where the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave of water. Turnagain Arm’s bore tide is the United States’ highest differential (from low tide to high tide) and one of the biggest in the world. When the biggest bore tides occur, a 10 foot wall of water travelling at 15 miles per hour fills Turnagain Arm and Knik Arm. There is a bore tide every day but is usually fairly small. The biggest bore tides are rare and it takes a combination of factors to occur.
For more info, check ouit:
Just south of Turnagain Arm is Beluga Point, 20 miles south of Anchorage. Besides being a place for dramatic views of Cook Inlet, in May to August you may sight Beluga whales that come into Cook Inlet to follow salmon.
Portage Glacier is at the south end of Turnagain Arm, near the town of Girdwood.

Very good BBQ.
I’ve wondered for a while, but they DO have draft beer available.
I had the ribs. Very tasty and tender; as many have said they are on the drier side in terms of the rub. However, they do provide their own sauce on the tables so you can add to your own liking. (Although the rub itself is very delicious; I happen to prefer them to be dripping with sauce.)
Mostly I was incredibly amazed at the side of beans it came with. Packed with immense flavor! I would never voluntarily order beans. It’s just not my thing. They were a little sweet, had a little kick, and my goodness, the baked beans were just so good. I would happily order them as a side in a heartbeat. Whenever I go anywhere else now that automatically serves baked beans as a side, I’m extremely disappointed since they are no where near as good as these.
As for the place itself, it’s pretty fun. Interesting items on the wall, indoor and outdoor seating. On a nice day, sit outside. You can’t beat the view.

We stopped here yesterday on our way back from Homer. With the busy weekend traffic, it was a little hairy trying to find it without getting rear-​ended by every motorhome racing back to the barn. So, pay attention and pull over as you search.
I had the chopped brisket sandwich and my friends had the baby back ribs. I thought it was good, 3 star-​worthy, and tried all of the sauces at the table which were individually unique. The beans had big bits of ham in them and I liked that.
I thought the cole slaw was very good, fresh, and I liked the fact that it was simple and not covered in goo.
I would stop here again, but wouldn’t necessarily make a special trip.

I am glad for Unilocal and the Food Network & Travel Channel to open us up to new experiences. Dry rub barbecue is one of them. I think had I not known about dry rub, I would have been put off by the pulled pork sandwich I ordered. I do prefer the sloppier Kahlua Pork served at Hula Hands, but this was good with the sauce I added. I added their red sauce which was not very sweet but had lots of complex flavors to it.
I liked the deep, smokey flavor from that meat too, I kept getting a good whiff as I ate it. 2 BIG POINTS off tho’ for a dry, cold roll the sandwich was served on. If I go back, I will ask them to grill or toast the roll. That should have been a «given».
I liked the fried dill pickle slices although they were very salty and only coated in corn meal (not really batter fried, just so you aren’t expecting anything else) and I loved the sweet potato fries — all come with their mustard-​y spicy dip/​sauce. Loved their sauces. The beans had a strong cumin taste to them and they were good — not great — but cooked until soft and just different enough to make you go, «huh, that’s good!».
Hated the cole slaw — it was the kind that squeaks against your teeth it was so raw and was just nothing but slaw with vinegar. If salt were added, it would have broken down the cabbage to be tender but even the next day, the slaw was squeeky hard. I’ve had slaw with a vinegar based dressing but this was nothing more than vinegar. Break out the salt and pepper and splash some flavor on it guys. I’d tell them «hold the slaw» next time. I at least want to try the brisket sandwich…

One of the great drives of America starts in Anchorage and zips around the scenic Turnagain Arm, leading the entrance of the Kenai Peninsula. What makes Turnagain Arm so dramatic are the towering mountains of the Chugach, seemingly plunging into the Cook Inlet at a steep grade. It’s a wonder that the Seward Highway was even built, considering the threat of avalanches and explosions necessary to cut through the mountainsides.
You can view much wildlife on this drive: bald eagles on the mudflats at low tide, beluga whales chasing the salmon into the Arm to trap them with the tides, dall sheep on the rocky cliffs next to the road, and even the occasional moose or two. If you’re driving Southbound, there are several turnouts on the right side of the road that you can pull off and take pictures. It’s a 2-​lane highway, so be mindful of your speed when entering and exiting the highway.
About 40 – 50 minutes outside of Anchorage is Girdwood, a sleepy little town with a 5-​star skiing resort, Alyeska. There are nature trails and a handful of restaurants. Past Girdwood is the turnoff to Whittier, then a long curve that takes you around the southern edge of Turnagain Arm. Another few miles and you’re leaving the Arm and entering the Kenai peninsula.
Definitely do this drive before you leave Alaska!
Check out National Geographic’s feelings on the subject: